Edith started to cry. Nathan saw something should be done and he did it. He stooped and picked up his mother. Though she fought and clawed his face, he managed it. Bidding Edith go ahead with the lamp, he carried his struggling mother up the stairs and into her chamber. There he laid her on the bed.
“Undress her, Edie,” he ordered. “Get her into bed before Pa comes back.”
“I dassent, Nat. I’m afraid.”
Nathan locked his mother into the bedroom, first making certain there was nothing about the chamber with which she could “do anything rash.” Then he went back down the stairs.
He was inclined to agree with an oft-expressed sentiment of his father’s. It was a “hell of a home.”
“Where you going, Natie?” cried Edith. “Don’t leave me alone with her. I’m afraid, I say.”
“She can’t get out, unless she jumps through a window, and I don’t aim to be here when Pa comes back.”
“Where you going?”
“I dunno. Just out.”
Nathan started for the hallway. But he got no farther. He met his father—coming in.